


A Laugh and the Rest

by Vamillepudding



Category: Queer as Folk (UK)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 14:18:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17024223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamillepudding/pseuds/Vamillepudding
Summary: Stuart finds a grey hair and gets run over. Vince does not find a shag, but then, he's got Stuart for that.





	A Laugh and the Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AuKestrel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuKestrel/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide !! I hope you enjoy this x

Stuart had this habit of making Vince feel old. It was mostly annoying, a tad unnerving, but most of all, it was frustrating. They were the same age, or close, and yet it felt like in a hundred years, all those young lads coming to Canal Street for the very first time would still run into Stuart Alan Jones, not aged a day over 30 and still perfectly capable of picking up anyone he liked, anyone at all.

Meanwhile Vince would be buried, good and proper, probably with one of his Doctor Who DVDs and not a shag in sight, unless you counted those freaks who liked shagging on graveyards. Vince had met one once. Danny Brown, perfectly nice bloke until they got to his flat, where things had gotten weirder than your average Star Trek plot. By the time Danny showed Vince the coffin, he’d already made his peace with the fact that this would be another date he’d rather Stuart not know about but would eventually end up talking about regardless. He never had been good at keeping secrets. Not from Stuart, anyway. 

All in all, the original point that Vince could hardly remember himself by now was: since Stuart could not just be an insufferable bastard in general, but also insufferably timeless, as though he were the poster child of anti-aging lotions, it was almost surreal, then, when he found a grey hair. 

“I’m just saying,” Stuart told him once Vince had picked up the phone, “this could very well be it. My last day on earth.” 

“Stuart Jones, aged 30, died of being a right twat,” Vince agreed. He had been trying to decide between two shirts when Stuart called, and held them both up now. They were different shades of red. One had gotten him his last shag, the other one had been vomited on twice. If only he could remember which was which. “What was I wearing when that twat threw up on me?”

“Vince!” Stuart possessed the rare skill of making his eyeroll apparent over the phone. “This is a crisis.” 

“I think I’m gonna stay in tonight” he said thoughtfully. Both shirts had barely hit the floor before being picked up again and neatly laid over the back of a chair. Vince told himself he could have let them stay on the ground if he’d wanted to. 

“You’re not. It’s a Friday night, Vince. When’s the last time you got laid?” 

“I don’t know,” Vince lied. 

“Wasn’t it that coffin bloke? That was it, wasn’t it?” Stuart’s good mood was instantly restored at the reminder of his best friend’s humiliation. “I just don’t see how that’s fair, all things considered, you know? Where’s your grey hair? By all rights you should be completely bald by now. That youth is wasted on you.” 

“Oh, sod off,” Vince said and hung up. By the time the obnoxious sound of someone hitting the horn and not removing their hand disturbed the whole neighbourhood and presumably served to get Vince yet another noise complaint, he’d put both red shirts back in the wardrobe and changed into something blue.

**

There was drunk, and there was _drunk_. Vince’s current state was definitely more befitting to the second one, and had been for quite a while. For the past five minutes he’d been going on about – something – William Hartnell? 

“The first is the first, you know?,” he told the man at the table next to him. “He wasn’t great or anything, but he was the _first_. That’s got to count for something. What world would it be if that didn’t count?” 

“Are we gonna fuck or not?,” the man asked bluntly. Vince thought this was rather rude of him, but then, if rudeness had bothered him, he’d have no friends left at all. Gripping the table to stop from swaying, he gave the man a once-over. Good face, big hair, a shirt that was just tight enough to show off an untrained belly. Still, not the worst lay he’d ever had. 

“Yeah,” he said, “alright”, and then went to say something else, except he couldn’t remember what and also this was the moment Stuart hugged him from behind. 

Old age suited him well, it seemed, seeing as Vince could see the exact second his suitor caught sight of the new addition to their party and immediately lost all interest in Vince. Any minute now he would offer-

“I’m open to threesomes.” Ah, there it was. Followed by the inevitable “or just the two of us?” directed at Stuart. Usually, this was when Vince made an excuse and left Stuart and his shag for the night to their own devices. Tonight, though, before he could invent a sick mother or an early morning shift, Stuart said, almost lazily, “maybe next time, eh?” 

“What was wrong with him?” Vince whisper-shouted as they made their way through the crowd, heading for the exit. “Did you have him already?” 

“Nah.” 

If Stuart said anything more, it got lost in the music. Even so, by the time they entered the jeep, Vince was too tired to care and, mere seconds later, dead asleep.

**

He woke up to a headache and a dick drawn on his face. In retrospect, he should not have been surprised.

**

The call came not long after he’d arrived home, still sporting the remnants of sharpie on his cheeks and forehead. Very briefly he considered not answering it, but deep down he knew that he could never leave it ringing. 

“Mr Tyler? This is the Manchester General Hospital.” 

Six words were enough to make Vince instantly regret every time he’d made up an ill relative or friend to get out of a social activity. 

“Yeah,” he heard himself saying. “Alright. Yeah. Hiya. Sorry, who’s this?”

“The hospital,” the voice repeated. “You’re listed as the emergency contact of Mr Stuart Jones. There’s been an accident. Sir? Are you there?” 

“I’ll be there,” Vince said and, for the second time in 12 hours, hung up on someone. 

Everything else followed on autopilot: Change shirts, grab his keys and coat, lock the door, get in the car, not run over his elderly neighbour who sometimes brought him pot roast, drive to the hospital while Mrs Winterbottom waved cheerfully after him, and then arrive at the patient’s room out of breath, feeling like he’d just run a marathon. 

And there Stuart was, sitting on the cot with his arm in a bandage and a plaster on his forehead. On anyone else, they might have looked stupid. On Stuart, they looked like God himself had drafted up the image of perfection and then put it in an ad about patient care at the local hospital. Vince was at once overcome by the already familiar and long-practiced feel of jealousy and admiration. 

Stuart, catching eye of him, got that delighted look that always meant trouble – but then, what didn’t? “Did they call you? I told them not to but they wouldn’t listen.” 

Now that the initial relief over seeing his best friend both alive and well had passed, it was swiftly replaced by anger. “What were you thinking? Getting run over by a car? Had me worried sick, you did.” 

“Why are you having a go at me? I’m the victim here. The cunt who was on the wheel is the one you should be angry with. Bastard deserves to go to jail for this.” 

From behind the curtain separating Stuart from the other patients came a deep, heartfelt “fuck off, you wanker”.  

Stuart’s smile upon this unexpected development got wider. Vince was fairly sure his friend had made that exact face right before setting fire to Alexander’s parents’ car. “Couldn’t you have injured the left arm instead?” he called out. “How am I supposed to wank now?” 

“Stuart,” Vince hissed. “As if you can’t get other people to do that for you. Now come on, we’ll go to Hazel’s, she can take care of you proper like.” 

Stuart, sensing weakness, repeated: “other people”. He would have sounded almost wistful, if his whole being didn’t only come equipped with two emotions: horny and sulky. “What about you?” 

“Mum will love it,” Vince said. He ignored Stuart’s mocking smile. “She patched you up loads of times, remember? Used to say you wouldn’t have any teeth left to get knocked out by the time you hit college.” 

“What about you, Vince?” 

“’Course, she won’t be happy you went to the doctors instead. She’s gonna give you a right lecture on that. Waste of money, she says.” He trailed off, lost for another distraction. 

With no more words left, they just looked at each other, one with a sneer, the other fighting the urge to drop his gaze. Finally, Stuart got up and slung his uninjured arm around Vince’s shoulders. 

“Lead the way. If I have to stare at this depressingly straight wallpaper for another minute I’m gonna bloody off myself.” 

“ _Stuart_ ” Vince said in the tone of one who has already gone through the same lecture a thousand times and fully expects another thousand to follow. 

He didn’t mind.


End file.
